The present invention concerns a lid for an airbag accommodated in the instrument panel of a motor vehicle.
Lids of this genus are for reasons of function and esthetics adapted to their environment with respect to the design of their materials and exterior, meaning that they are as unremarkable a part of the wall of the instrument panel facing the passengers as possible. The panels usually have a textured and leatherlike surface that, although relatively soft itself, constitutes the skin of a hard molding of injected plastic. The lids themselves accordingly have a hard and dimensionally stable core and a soft exterior.
Instrument panels of this genus are themselves standard equipment, even in many small automobiles, although their manufacture requires considerable expenditure. In the course of radically decreasing the costs of producing motor vehicles accordingly, recourse has been had with respect to many less expensive vehicle models to producing the instrument panels in one piece out of a comparatively hard plastic, which is essentially simpler from the aspect of manufacturing technology although it necessarily results in a hard surface that does not match most of the lids so far employed. The lid should, however, match the instrument panel in these cases as well.
There is also the problem that hard plastics tend to splinter when an airbag suddenly inflates and the lid pivots out. Since the release of fragments absolutely must be prevented in view of the associated risk of injury, the plastics employed for hard instrument panels are entirely inappropriate for manufacturing airbag lids. It is accordingly very difficult to match the lid to the instrument panel as required.
There accordingly exists a need for an airbag lid of the aforementioned genus that cannot be differentiated from the surrounding instrument panel and that will not splinter when the airbag is actuated and break down into fragments that fly around out of control.